Missing persons seem to matter less when Black
TWO YEARS ago this column explored the story of Owami Davies.
A 24-year-old student nurse from Essex, Owami’s six-week disappearance went largely unnoticed until the Daily Mirror became one of a small group of media outlets to press the police on it.
She was eventually found by a member of the public, thankfully alive, and the Independent Office of Police Conduct began a probe into the handling of the case.
Among the failings highlighted, police issued CCTV images showing the wrong woman. She isn’t the only missing Black woman to have been let down.
In 2021, the IOPC found London’s Met had failed to follow their own missing person’s policies after Mina Smallman’s murdered daughters, Bibaa and Nicole, were found by friends who’d organised their own search party.
In 2019, Joy Morgan’s mother Carol lashed out at the animal stories prioritised over the search for her daughter who was later found dead.
The man who killed primary school teacher Sabina Nessa was flagged to police just three days before he murdered her in 2021, but police didn’t investigate.
It struck me last week as I watched a four-minute feature on Breakfast TV about Claudia Lawrence, missing since 2009. It is entirely right that the search for the chef from York should continue. My heart goes out to her loved ones.
Likewise the families of Genette Tate, Suzy Lamplugh, Madeleine McCann and so many others. As a father myself, I wouldn’t wish a missing child on my worst enemy. So the well-documented difference in will to find one demographic over another makes the whole thing even more upsetting.
The Americans have a term for it:
Missing White Woman Syndrome. It has resurfaced with the case of Samaria Ayanle. The 19-year-old student was only reported missing by her university two weeks after her body was pulled from the River Thames in February.
But the Metropolitan Police insisted they had nothing to identify her, no personal belongings and that her fingerprints were not connected to anyone in their database.
The university says it began taking steps to contact Samaria as soon as concerns were raised about her.
The bottom line is that it appears to matter less when Black people go missing. How much, for example, has been talked about Xielo Maruziva, the two year-old reported missing after falling into a river in Leicester six weeks ago? Or Daniel Alaby, the five-year-old found dead in the River Thames over the weekend after going missing from his home in Thamesmead, South London? The distressing incident has given rise to questions around the growing number of missing Black people eventually found in or near bodies of water over the past four years.
They include Blessing Olusegun, Richard Okorogheye, Olisa Odukwe, Kayon Williams and Taiwo Balogun.
Well aware that their unease will be dismissed as speculation, members of the public have been made aware of a form, Asking The Tides, to collate information to put together a more concrete picture.
According to the National Police Chief ’s Council, ethnic minorities are missing for longer, less likely to be found by the police and less likely to be recorded as being at risk, than white people.
No wonder people are taking matters into their own hands.
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Bibaa and Nicole were found after friends set up a search party